I was chatting with a person on FB yesterday who is critical of me for selling DVDs of my instruction. He believes that I promote myself, and he interprets this as me telling people I'm a master. Bottom line -- he doesn't think I'm good enough to sell instruction on DVD, compared with other higher-level instructors.

Then I received this email from Alan in Orlando, Florida:

"Thanks for your wonderful work and your excellent DVD segments. I feel I'm learning more from them than I did from my previous experience taking in-person classes many years ago."

I also reminded my critic on FB of the young man in Beijing who wrote to me telling me how my DVDs helped him bridge the language barrier between him and his Chinese Xingyi teacher, and my instruction was responsible for the progress he had made in his teacher's class. He understood the principles the teacher was trying to get across because of my DVDs.As I explained to my critic on FB, I could teach at the local YMCA and none of the trolls in Facebook Land would care. I could advertise my classes and no critics would tell me I don't have the right. But I have a different set of skills, with my radio and TV background, that help me teach a different way, by producing DVDs, podcasts, and videos for online instruction. I am simply reaching students a different way. If they can learn from what I do (and they do learn), why should anyone else care where and how I teach?

Once you put yourself online, even when I continue to insist I am not and will never be a master, a chunk of the martial artists out there will be threatened. They will attack. They see you as competition. Despite their claims of being the real deal, and nobody else is the real deal, and other people are promoting themselves, in the end their criticism comes from insecurity.

Seriously, shouldn't you be practicing instead of sitting at a keyboard on the East Coast or in France passing judgment on other teachers? Yeah. I think you should. And then, the next time you look in a mirror, ask yourself how your heart-mind got so terribly off-track; how your "spirit" got so dirty. You see, you are not my target. If you are at a higher level than I am, my material is not aimed at you. I help people all over the world get back into the internal arts, or take them up for the first time. Anytime I do that, it develops an audience for the art, and I often refer people to good teachers in their area so they can learn in person. What could be a better win-win situation than that? Unfortunately, a lot of FB martial arts warriors don't want a win-win situation. They believe if I win, they lose. And they actually think they have some strange right to judge other martial artists. Well, here's a wake-up call. I'm helping people, not only by selling DVDs and teaching through my online school, but also by promoting other teachers through my podcast and blog.WTF are YOU doing for anyone other than yourself? By the way, my new Bagua Elk Horn Knives DVD will be ready next week. It's pretty damn good. I'm no Liu Jingru, but you will learn more on this DVD than you will from his DVD. I guarantee it or your money back. :)